EA's got Crysis on its hands

Those of you wondering what Far Cry developer Crytek's been up to since EA gobbled up the rights to its children have your answer: Crysis, an original PC first-person shooter, release date TBC but probably Q4 2006.

Based on the developer's CryENGINE 2, Crysis players "will face a new kind of gameplay challenge requiring adaptive tactics and customisation of weapons and armour in dynamic, hostile environments as mankind struggles to survive in the face of a horrific alien invasion."

Hrm. Not much like Far Cry then in terms of setting. Those of you hoping for more jungle-based slugging will have to put up with Ubisoft's efforts on Xbox, Xbox 360 and PC.

Then again, Crytek's fantastic work with enemy AI and freeform environments in Far Cry bode well for Crysis, and "adaptive tactics" and "dynamic, hostile environments" suggest they haven't lost their taste for it either.

What's more, some early info from a German games mag (which also said Crysis would be the first DirectX 10-enabled game for Windows Vista) last week had some artwork that bore the jungly hallmarks. Guess we'll have to wait and see how it balances out.

Here's what Crytek's Cevat Yerli had to say about Crysis: "Our focus has always been on innovating gameplay and technology, and bringing new experiences to gamers through our original intellectual properties. Crysis will be a showcase for that commitment and will offer gamers from all over the world the next step in FPS gaming." Not that the EA thing is rubbing off or anything, then.